


Woven Together

by ishtarelisheba



Series: Spinner's Helper 'verse [3]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Ish promptathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-11
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:15:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishtarelisheba/pseuds/ishtarelisheba
Summary: Moments in the life of the Floof Family of spinners.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt - _deweymay said: Hey, a huuuuuge congrats on your TEA wins!! And a humble request for a Spinners Helper update for your promptathon, maybe a first birthday celebration? Thanks so much :)_

Rumpelstiltskin pushed the coals from the top of the covered pan, scooting them back into the fire, and carefully took the lid off so that no ash fell in. It had been a while since he’d been able to make a cream cake. Well, a cake of any sort, really. He hoped that it turned out well.

“Is it done?” Bae asked, hovering at his shoulder. 

“Should be,” he said cheerfully, pointing back toward the table. “Hand me the plate.”

Bae hopped the two steps over and back. He took a deep breath in. “It smells _so_ good.”

Rumpel set the pan on a wide cloth and placed the plate over top of the pan. He wrapped the cloth over so that he could touch them and quickly flipped it, hoping that the cake came out. If he’d done a good enough job of greasing it… 

Noemi fussed in response to her Mama’s attempts at dressing her. Belle sat on the bed, doing her best to fish a tiny, squirming arm back through an armhole. 

He leaned to peer between the edges of the pan and plate as he separated them. “Success!” he said, revealing the rather nicely clean surface of the cake.

“I may need your help dressing your daughter,” Belle told him. She let go of the baby’s arm and leaned down, blowing a raspberry against Noemi’s neck. The baby shrieked with laughter, forgetting the frustration of dressing.

 _“My_ daughter, hm?” He grinned, setting the plate on the table with the rest of dinner before going over. He sat at the opposite end, and the baby tilted her head back to give him a sparsely-toothed smile. “Interesting how you’re _my_ daughter when you fuss, isn’t it, love?”

Noemi reached up to him with the one arm her mother had managed to get into its sleeve. The other wiggled inside the dress. He chuckled, grabbing her and sweeping her upward, upside-down. She gave a great big belly laugh and he turned her right side up again to sit her on his lap.

“Let’s see if we can find that arm.” Rumpel searched for her hand and held it gently but firmly as he gathered the sleeve over his fingers. It was a bit easier to catch and slip through then.

Belle scoffed good naturedly as she stood. “Of course you make it look easy after I’ve been working at it for ten minutes.”

He turned Noemi over and let her prop herself up in her little crawling squat while he tied the pair of ribbons on the back of her dress. “Oh, don’t let the appearance of ease fool you,” he said, running his fingertips through the baby’s curls in an attempt to somewhat tame them. “I’ve already been through all of the stages of squirming child.”

Belle dropped a kiss on his cheek and raised her hands behind her head to finish getting ready, herself. Her father would be over soon for their little birthday celebration, and she hadn’t yet done her own hair. She wove it into a quick braid and tied off the end with a ribbon. Sitting again with a little bounce, she pushed herself back against the headboard of the blessedly wider bed. 

“Let’s get you fed before the rest of us have dinner,” she said, opening her hands toward Noemi.

The baby leaned toward her, and Rumpel gave their daughter over. He watched as Belle pulled open the tie at her side to loosen her dress’ front panel. He’d never been allowed to so attentively witness Baelfire nursing. Even a year in, it remained a source of fascination for him.

Noemi latched on and Belle leaned back, humming and swaying side to side ever so slightly. Rumpel shifted closer and she smiled up at him.

“A year ago today, we were just getting to know you,” he said softly, reaching out to stroke a curled finger over the baby’s cheek.

Belle watched her husband with a fond look. The wonder in his eyes was just as bright as it had been then, as well. “Mm. A year ago right now, you were probably both doing the exact same thing.”

Rumpel looked sidelong toward the table. “Not until after dinner, Bae,” he said, and Belle wondered if she would eventually develop eyes in the back of her head as her husband seemed to have. 

Baelfire had two fingers poked into the bowl of berries and chopped figs she’d softened in a few tablespoons of precious sugar, searching for a piece big enough to grab. It was meant as a topping for the cake. He looked up with an expression of innocence before sticking his fingers in his mouth.

“I was just testing it,” he said with a mischievous smile.

“Ah, well, if you were only _testing_ it,” Rumpel said, holding back laughter.

The entire meal was still somewhat of an indulgence for them - it was more food in one evening than they’d usually eat in an entire day - but she was happy that it was possible at all. Their income had more than doubled with her help. She and Rumpel had even begun seriously discussing saving up to add to the house a bit, so that Baelfire might have a bedroom of his own and Noemi would have one waiting for her when she needed it. 

“Here, Bae, come sit with me and your sister. Your Papa seems poised to give you some terribly scathing punishment,” she teased, giving him a wink as he came over to join them.

Bae climbed up and leaned into Belle’s side, curling up and snuggling against her. He reached out to hold Noemi’s bare foot in his hand, bouncing it gently.

Their family was happy and doing well, and that was more than Belle had hoped for even in her old life. She had a husband, a son, and a daughter, and if this was all the paradise she ever saw, she couldn’t have been more thankful for them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - _leni-ba said: Spinner's Helper 'verse. Bae & Naomi - playing together. And congrats!_

Baelfire rolled over to the edge of the blanket and plucked a buttercup out of the grass, rolling back to tickle beneath his baby sister’s chin with it. She squealed and giggled, making a grab for the flower. He held it out of her way. Everything that she got in her hands these days went right into her mouth, and as his Mama and Papa told him, he shouldn’t let her hold anything that small that they wouldn’t let her have for food.

It was likely one of the last warm days of summer. Belle had suggested they take their lunch outside to soak up a bit of sun and fresh air before autumn took over and the ground was too cold. So they’d taken one of the winter blankets down from the rafters and spread it over the grass in front of the house, setting out a nice picnic lunch of bread, honey, cheese, and ham.

Once they’d finished eating, Belle lay down with her head in her husband’s lap, and after a moment of pleased surprise, he began running his fingers through her hair. She settled the baby to sit against her stomach, where she could watch her children play.

“Do you like butter, Emi?” Bae asked his baby sister, tilting the flower until it reflected a yellow glow beneath her chubby little chin. “You do! I thought you did!”

The baby squealed, patting her hands against her legs and reaching for her brother. He leaned to kiss her cheek with a loud smack before flopping down onto his belly. Noemi reached a bit too precariously for Bae’s hair, and only her Mama’s hand kept her from toppling forward. He stretched to grab the felted wool doll she’d discarded earlier in favor of gumming at a piece of bread heel.

“Doll?” Bae said, holding it out for her. 

“Daaah!” she cooed happily. 

It was one of his new favorite games, attempting to get his sister to repeat after him. She hadn’t spoken words of her own, and couldn’t yet grasp more than a sound at a time, but she seemed to regularly acquire a new babbling noise from his game. 

He bumped the doll’s face gently against Noemi’s with a kissing sound. “Doll!”

“DAH!” the baby squawked, laughing. “Dahdahdah…”

“Can you say ‘Papa’?” he tried.

She reached for the doll. “Dah!”

“What about ‘Mama’?” Bae asked, encouraging her. _“Ma-_ ma!”

Belle smiled sleepily, reaching out to run a hand over her son’s hair. “I believe words are still just a bit beyond her, darling.”

Noemi looked back and forth between them. “Dah,” she said, and her brother let her have her doll. She grabbed its arm and gave it a good shake, swatting him square in the face with it.

“Emi! Oh, no!” Bae gasped, dropping his head dramatically to the blanket and sprawling his arms wide. “You got me!” 

She gave a great belly laugh and swung her arm back and forth, managing to hit the top of his head with her doll’s legs more time than not.

“I’m really glad that’s just wool,” he said with a giggle, rolling onto his side to face her. He caught the hand not slinging her doll around and kissed it the way his Papa and Mama kissed her hands.

Noemi dipped forward, her wide open mouth colliding with his cheek in what was apparently meant to be a kiss. “Bah!” she said as her Papa laughed and reached over her Mama to tug her by the back of her dress to sit up again. Her face squinted up in delight as her big brother followed to give her another kiss in return. “Bah, bah, bah!”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt - _white-throated-packrat said: Spinner's Wife -- the first time someone commissioned Belle to weave cloth for payment ~~\-- or -- the entire family making nettlecloth for new shirts and shifts~~_

“Your cloth is some of the finest I’ve ever seen,” Rumpelstiltskin said, resting a hand at his wife’s back while she stood before the old loom as though she hadn’t been working with it for nearly a year and it might now turn to bite her. 

The smith’s wife was one of their most consistent patrons. She bought skeins nearly every market day, and a great deal extra when a festival approached. On this past market day, she had complimented the little dress that Belle made for Noemi and Bae’s matching tunic. When Belle mentioned that she’d spun the thread and woven the cloth herself, the smith’s wife had commissioned her then and there for enough to made dresses for both of her daughters and a tunic for her son in time for the spring festival. As it turned out, her new child was predicted to come around the equinox and she worried that she would be unable to make the garments if she had to do it right from the yarn.

Belle’s agreement and subsequent excitement had waned in the face of realizing she would be weaving something for the use of people outside of her own family for the first time.

She pulled her lower lip between her front teeth and pinched it hard before sighing and turning to face him. “Yours is better.”

“Nonsense. Besides, I can’t stand at the loom for so long.”

“You made enough for my wedding dress.”

“A labor of love,” he told her, leaning to kiss her cheek. He never had mentioned to her how the days he’d spent in pain and with a worsened limp just before their wedding were his payment for that very cloth.

Belle’s stance when she crossed her arms over her middle and tucked her chin down was just a bit petulant. “Why couldn’t she have asked for yours?”

“Because she wants yours.” Rumpel gave her a gentle nudge toward the loom. “And it’s your cloth she’ll have.”

He went back to his spinning wheel, arranging Noemi in her sling so that she could rest supported against his chest while she napped. Freshly nursed, she would be all right for a few hours while her Mama contemplated weaving. The baby fussed a little, but soothing words from her Papa and the sound of the wheel quickly soothed her.

Belle stared down the loom. She’d already prepared the warp before her doubts had begun pricking so badly at her. It was all readied, waiting for her to begin. She took the shuttle and brandished it like a weapon.

“I can do this,” she announced to no one in particular, nodding her head.

She eyed the loom from its upper beam to the teardrop-shaped, red clay weights hanging at the bottom, passed down to her husband from his Aunties. She could weave a bit more than her height in a day if she put her mind to it. Four days, and she’d have the order done. Ideally. She supposed it would depend on whether and how many mistakes she made and had to rip back.

The thought of ripping her weaving back on such an important commission plucked at her nerves, and she paced away from the loom and back to it. She caught Rumpel looking her way, but when she looked over, his attention was carefully on his spinning. Belle grumbled quietly and forced herself to step forward and begin.

By the time she fell into bed next to her husband, she’d managed half as much as she typically could have woven. Nerves slowed her fingers and made her doubt herself. The frustration of it exhausted her, and she snuggled into Rumpel’s embrace, wrapping her arms around his torso and listening to his reassurances until she fell asleep. 

The next day went better. She made three mistakes, though she caught each within a couple of rows of weft, and they were easily ripped back and corrected. On the third day, she wove very nearly her height. She could tell, however, that her estimate of four days was likely just a bit too optimistic. Five days, then. If she kept up her speed and quality, she would only need to work for a few hours on the fifth morning, and it was far easier work to finish the cloth after that.

Everything seemed to go well on her fourth day of weaving the order. Both her own work as well as Rumpel’s went a little slowly, due to Noemi’s stomach being a bit upset, but she had more than she thought she would at the end of the day.

It was only when she finally sat down to eat dinner with her family that she saw a series of skipped warp threads on the back of the cloth. Halfway through the meal, she caught it, her fork stopping in midair before it reached her mouth. She dropped the utensil to her plate and went to the rear of the loom, poking at the missing threads. Going around to the other side, she immediately began ripping it back.

“Belle…” Rumpel said gently, stepping away from his own dinner. “Belle, it can wait ’til the morning. You needn’t go back to it just now. It’s dark, not long before bed-”

“I may not be able to do the weaving in the dark, but I can undo this,” she said, her voice shaking.

Bae finished his dinner and Rumpel read to both children before putting them to bed. He set Belle’s plate near the fire to warm again, and he went back to her, where she was still undoing her work. He stood nearby and hoped that he lent some manner of moral support, as he knew that it was useless to talk her out of it. 

He watched as she got the last of it, ripping out the section of missed warp measuring perhaps the breadth of his fingertip and nearly the full width of the cloth, and she sat down on the floor to look up at the loom. Less than half of her work for the day remained there. In the loom’s shadow, he heard the fractured breaths beneath her crying.

Rumpel leaned his walking stick against the loom and sat down with her, drawing her into his arms. He kissed her face and held her.

“This was meant to be a good thing!” She sniffled, rubbing her face against his shoulder. “I was so excited to have gotten a special order. Why didn’t you tell me how miserable it would be?”

“Would you have believed me?” He turned his head to kiss her damp, emotion-flushed cheek.

Sitting back, Belle gave him a baleful look, but she shook her head. 

“The first order is always the worst,” he said softly. “But you get the worry and the nerves worked out with it. The smith’s wife will love what you make for her, and the next time will go more easily.”

“This is ridiculous,” she hiccupped, trying to smother the last of her tears. “I know full well how to weave, now. Half a day’s work down the drain!”

“You’re doing beautifully, Belle. Even an expert weaver makes the occasional mistake,” he told her, petting her hair and smiling sympathetically. He stroked the tears away from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Oh, you should have seen the fit my Auntie Brigh pitched once upon finding a mistake after weaving an entire day through. She left it for a week before ripping it back. She said if she hadn’t left it, she’d have lit it afire instead.”

Belle laughed, though it was a watery sound.

“You don’t have to go back to it tomorrow, if you don’t want to,” Rumpel said, drawing the end of her braid through his fingers. “You could leave it, spin tomorrow. You’ve two weeks, still, to get the cloth to her. You have more than enough time.”

She nodded, looking up at the loom again, sighing and rolling her eyes before she and Rumpel helped one another to their feet. She ate the rest of her dinner and then checked on the baby, rousing her enough for her bedtime feeding. With Noemi sated and sound asleep, Belle finished undressing and got into her nightdress just next to the bed, laying her clothes over the headboard, only just realizing that her husband had already changed into his own nightshirt. He held the covers back and she climbed in next to him.

“I’ll do better when I go back to it,” she said, dropping her head back onto her pillow. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps I do need a day’s rest from it.”

Her husband rolled nearer, pressing a kiss to the side of her neck, and she smiled. The kiss he brushed over her shoulder after pulling the neck of her nightgown aside gave her a better suspicion of what he was up to.

“Rumpel…” Her smile turned into a grin.

“Hmm?” he hummed, a smirk she’d come to associate with mischief forming at the corner of his mouth. He pulled the blanket up over his shoulder and squirmed down in the bed a little.

Belle grabbed the sleeve of his nightshirt. “What are you doing?”

“I thought perhaps you might do with a release of tension?” he whispered, and his tongue darted out to wet his lips.

His intention was clear, but the look he gave her asked for her permission. She nodded, reaching out to stroke the evening stubble at his jawline with the backs of her fingers. With her approval, he finished pulling the blanket over his head and shifted farther down, moving to lie between her knees.

Thanks to their sales during the past solstice festival, they had been able to lay down a wood floor over the hardpack, as well as having the woodworker build a simple partition that they could place between their bed and the side of the room where Baelfire slept. They would still need to keep quiet until there was enough saved for having the extra rooms built, but the partition provided a small measure of marital privacy in the night.

He pushed the hem of her nightdress up her thighs and over her hips, and she felt a warm flush rise from her chest, washing pleasantly over her face. Rumpel nuzzled at her thigh. The sensation of his unshaven cheek against the tender skin made her shiver, and an unexpected lick to the crease where her leg met her abdomen made her pull in a breath so quickly that she squeaked. She tugged the loose neck of her nightdress up to cover her mouth. 

Rumpel licked at her, slow and languorously, letting the feeling build without hurrying her. His hands cupped over her hips, his thumbs stroking against her skin there for a while before he slid them farther back to splay across her bottom. 

Her husband was shy about a good many things; this was not one of them. He sucked gently at her inner folds and her toes curled against the soft fabric of his nightshirt. His ministrations built her higher and higher, and he began concentrating at that wonderful point near the top of her sex, sucking the bud there between his lips, using his hands to hold her firmly against his mouth.

Belle gasped and bit her nightdress, her eyes squeezing shut as the feeling poured through her. As she finished, she felt him licking at her entrance, felt his tongue curling inside her as her body shuddered and her inner muscles clenched and released over and over again.

Rumpel kissed and petted her thighs with warm hands, coming back out from beneath the covers while she was still floating a bit high. He stretched out next to her and urged her gently onto her side, spooning up behind her. She felt him brushing kisses over the back of her neck, then felt him lay his head on the pillow to rest against hers as she fell asleep.

Morning after next, she unwound more length on the warp threads from the weights and rolled a bit more of the cloth back onto the top beam, making room for the day’s work. With a fresh eye, slightly repaired nerves, and the memory of her husband’s head nestled between her thighs to dwell cheerfully on, she set about finishing the length of cloth.

By the end of the day, the brilliant robin’s egg blue thread that she’d enjoyed working with in the beginning had worn out its welcome utterly. They had to take the cloth outside in the sun on the next day to block it, there being not enough room in the house to stretch its length out flat enough. The process went more quickly in the outdoors anyway. Working a few feet at a time, they wet the cloth thoroughly, then pressed out the water before pinning it to the grass ground in front of the house to dry in the sun. 

In the early evening, they unpinned it and she and Rumpel folded it end to end thrice before rolling it into a bundle that could be easily carried. With the length of woolen cloth finished and blocked and ready to hand over, Belle took it across the village. The smith’s wife - and then the smith, himself, when she called him over - clucked happily over her work. It wasn’t being relieved of the cloth’s weight that had Belle feeling so much lighter on her walk back home, though. 

Rumpel met her outside. He held Noemi to his chest, the baby facing outward so that she could see Bae as he and Morraine played nearby in the last of the evening’s sunlight. Belle ran from the edge of the path and up the walk to him, heedless of how ‘unladylike’ she might appear. She pulled from the little leather purse at her waist the three silver coins given in payment by the smith, holding them out in her palm. With the addition of the coins to their savings, they would have enough to add on to the house by fall.

He tugged her close, curling his free arm around her and giving her a kiss more warming than the sun. Noemi piped up with an indignant little squawk at being pressed between her parents, and Belle pulled back to kiss the top of her head.

“I am _so_ proud of you,” her husband said.

She smiled brightly up at him. “I don’t know that I could have finished it without you.”

“Oh, more nonsense,” he said with a shake of his head. “You made a beautiful length of fabric such as the king would be flattered to have a tunic cut from. I supplied words here and there, no more.”

“I might have done the weaving, but it was absolutely a joint effort.” Belle tucked herself into his side and wrapped her arms around his waist. “Just say ‘you’re welcome,’ Rumpel.”

“You’re welcome,” he echoed, his smile turning bashful.

She tilted her head back and went up onto her toes to press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Thank you.”


End file.
